Barbara Sopato swears her interest in Carl Kasell is perfectly normal. “I do not have an unhealthy obsession with Carl,” she says of the retired NPR newsreader and announcer of Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!
Sopato, NPR’s director of consumer products, is in charge of NPR’s heaps of network- and show-branded swag, which is always available on NPR’s website, but not readily tangible to the person who might need to see the merchandise before deciding if they prefer their tote bags to feature the visage of legal affairs reporter Nina Totenberg or special correspondent Susan Stamberg.
Until now.
Today and tomorrow, NPR (635 Massachusetts Avenue NW) is throwing its doors open to the public with mountains of T-shirts, bumper stickers, beer koozies, books and CDs all branded with the network stamp. The physical sale is an annual tradition for NPR’s staffers, but this marks the first time listeners will be able to join in.
Most of the items—and they are mostly T-shirts—feature the NPR logo in either the traditional three-block form or some stylized design. Coffee mugs featuring the marque are a hot item, too. Sopato chalks it up a bit to intellectual aspirations.
“I attribute that to people who want to be in the smart club,” she says.
But the level of care Sopato takes in selecting her merchandise seems appropriate for the proudly dorky network. All the T-shirts are manufactured in either the United States or Mexico, with many of the newest garments coming from TS Designs, a company in Burlington, N.C. that Sopato says grows, mills, dyes and weaves its cotton all within a 60-mile radius of its headquarters.
So, what else is there besides T-shirts, which run between $10 and $20? Well, a lot. Car Talk items are popular, including a very non-motorized bike jersey ($75) and collections of CDs featuring the nutty archives of Tom and Ray Magliozzi. The long-running auto repair program is a recent addition to the NPR shop, Sopato says; until earlier this year, Click and Clack memorabilia was shipped directly from Car Talk Plaza in Cambridge, Mass.
There are also NPR-branded Tivoli radios painted by Peter Max ($135 and up), Timbuktu messenger bags ($103) and shirts for dogs ($15). And, oh, yeah, those tote bags.
The “Nina Totin’ Bag”—”Nina Totenbag” is apparently the trademark of, um, us—features the Supreme Court chronicler in pop art display. The “Susan Stambag,” meanwhile, depicts everyone’s favorite relish recipe-maker in a Roy Lichtenstein-style portrait. Both bags sell for $20.
But then there is the Wait, Wait merch table. Though Sopato claims otherwise, she is quite fixated on Kasell, as best evidenced by the plush dolls of the sonorously voiced newsman. (They’re $12, by the way.) The Kasell-mania continues with throw pillows featuring his face.
Sopato says the pillows came about because of the long autograph lines that form in at the end of every recording of Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me, whether the game show is is taping at its home theater in Chicago or going on tour. And now they can offer Kasell something to sign.
“Obviously, Carl is the face of Wait, Wait,” Sopato says. “Not that Peter [Sagal] wouldn’t make a great pillow.”
We might never know. Sopato’s admiration for Kasell seems unshakable, though she insists she has “the normal love for Carl Kasell.”
The existence of those dolls suggest otherwise, though. Little Thinkers, the company that makes them offers a line of dolls depicting historical figures, and Sopato tells me that of every person the company depicts, the only people who are currently alive are a few U.S. presidents and Carl Kasell.
Offering all this swag also serves as a preview of next year, when NPR moves into a new building at 1111 North Capitol Street NE, where it will have a full-time company store.
The sale is today from 5 to 8 p.m. and tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. And there will be plenty of NPR personalities on hand. Felix Contreras, the host of Alt Latino, will be providing tonight’s music, while Bob Boilen of All Songs Considered is prepping a playlist for tomorrow. Many other voices will be popping in to meet fans and sign autographs, including Stamberg, Neal Conan, Ken Rudin, Guy Raz, Lynn Neary, David Greene, Scott Simon, Jacki Lyden and Rachel Martin.
And, oh yeah, Carl Kasell will be there too. Of course.
